Worst Case Scenario
by VampyrycPineapple
Summary: Because in life, nothing ends up in a win/win situation. One-shot.


The beginning of the end began when Grace Cahill died.

Some people say that it started much later, during varying times in what was known today as the Hunt, but the all around end result was that the Hunt was a bad idea all around. When Grace Cahill died, she set into motion the Hunt, which, unknown at the time, was a desperate bid to unite the five Cahill branches. Grace's plan ultimately failed in the end. No one knew the details of the Hunt, or what happened in the end, all we know was that Her Majesty, Empress Isabel Kabra emerged victorious was her two former wayward children at her side.

It was revealed that there has been a family of "super-powered" people that has been living among us since the 1500s. The four powers had been split among four of the Cahill branches: Janus, the artistically talented; Ekaterina, the geniuses; Tomas, the physically athletic – and of course, the best, Lucian, the leaders.

Her Majesty, Empress Isabel Kabra was, of course, a Lucian, the leader of the Lucians in fact. Due to a long-standing feud between the four branches, Her Majesty declared that all Janus, Ekaterinas, and Tomas were to be killed on sight. While the three branches made hasty alliances and agreed that working together could no longer hurt them, the three branches set up a temporary base in what was once known as Boston, Massachusetts; the Cahills held that base for two years. After an attack on the Cahills led by Her Highness, Natalie Kabra, the Cahills were forced to evacuate, and move back to the west coast of the continent.

Sometime after this, the Cahills managed to retreat all the way across the Pacific Ocean, over to what was once known as Australia. When they got there, they realized that they were being helped by Madrigals, the previously unknown fifth branch of the Cahill family. Madrigals have no special talents, but they had managed to become the enemy of the rest of the Cahill branches. When their leader, Fiske Cahill (younger brother of the late Grace Cahill), announced to the other three branches in hiding that, they were also Cahills, another truce was called and they had more resources than before.

Her Majesty, Empress Isabel Kabra then declared her former allies, Cora Wizard of the Janus, Alistair Oh of the Ekaterina, Eisenhower and Mary-Todd Holt of the Tomas branches safe, and told them to go over to her capital, an island once known as England, so they could help her get a better idea of what the other Cahills were going to do she could defeat them. Of those, only Cora Wizard left the Cahills; Alistair Oh, who said no immediately; and the Holts who eventually sent word that they were more loyal to the Tomas then Her Majesty. Bounties were places on their heads.

In the years to come, Her Majesty's health would be getting progressively worse, until after six years of Her Majesty's rule, she finally died. Her eldest child, His Highness Ian Kabra, who was only twenty years of age at the time, succeeded her. The Cahills soon found out and swiftly sent a retrieval team to retake their former base on the east coast of Americana. His Majesty quickly devised a plan to defend the Cahill base and sent his sister, Her Highness Natalie Kabra to lead it out. The Cahills suffered a massive defeat, and have been hiding out on their island.

His Majesty made many changes in the next year, the most notable of which was making the punishment for everything much less intense. His Majesty quickly became much more beloved than his late mother.

Exactly one year later, His Majesty sent a single ambassador to the Cahills with a document that – if their leader signed – would lead to a truce. The exact contents of the document have yet to be released, but we know that a truce would be signed if eleven Cahills signed a legal "gag" so they could not discuss the events of the Hunt. The Cahills sent back with a note saying that they weren't going to be fooled by any of the Emperor's tricks.

In return, His Majesty changed the document so now the eleven Cahills had a choice, they could stay there and sign the gag or they could not sign the gag and send nine of them to go live with him, so they couldn't talk about the Hunt with anymore Cahills. The eleven Cahills in question, Jonah Wizard (the estranged son of Cora Wizard) of the Janus, Ned, Ted, and Sinead Starling of the Ekaterina, Alistair Oh of the Ekaterina, Eisenhower, Mary-Todd, Hamilton, Madison, and Reagan Holt of the Tomas, and Amy and Dan Cahill of the Madrigal.

The Cahills did not respond until another four months of arguing within the Cahills took place. It was decided that they were going to send nine Cahills over, so they could continue to tell their young how the world ended. His Majesty agreed, and the Cahills sent over Jonah Wizard, Ned, Ted, and Sinead Starling, Hamilton, Madison, and Reagan Holt, and Amy and Dan Cahill over.

_-A Complete and Accurate Record of the Early Years of the Kabra Empire_

...

The reddish-brown-haired girl turned away from the window. She and her companions had been sitting in an awkward silence for the past hour. Though solemn faces of her friends were a bit more familiar than the desolate landscape that they were passing through, they were no more comforting. The girl had only just turned twenty-one, and the eldest of the group was only twenty-six; they were all too young to be sacrificing their lives. And even though they had all survived unbeatable odds together, there was no plausible way they could all get out of this mess alive.

"Does anyone else really wish that they were wasted right now?"

Startled, the girl looked at the source of the noise, funnily enough he had managed to catch everyone else off guard too. The girl's brother started laughing, it wasn't nice, oh-that-was-so-funny laughter; it was hysterical laughter, I've-been-pushed-past-the-bend laughter. The first to join him was his girlfriend, but soon they were all laughing so hard that their guards were slowly inching backwards.

Hiccupping, the girl said, "I don't believe this, are we all sharing a hallucination or something?" Her best friend, a girl with even redder hair than she, just smiled at her. It wasn't an I'm-so-happy smile; it was a sad smile, an I-wish-that-was-true-but-it's-never-going-to-happen smile. "I guess you're right, Sinead. But a girl can hope."

"And all we have is hope," a boy added. "It's all we're going to have for well, the rest of our natural lives."

"Jonah," the girl's brother's girlfriend began, "that was strangely poetic, even for you."

"But it's true." One of the girl's best friend's brothers reminded her.

They sat in silence until the girl's brother asked something, "You know the letter Grace wrote? The one we got after the Gauntlet? Well it was labeled 'Worst Case Scenario,' I wonder what the 'Best Case Scenario' would've been?" The man who first spoke up muttered something under his breath. "What was that, Ham?"

"I said that, it would be the complete opposite of this place." The man retorted.

The man's fiancée, who was also the girl's best friend, added to his statement. "—And even Cahill children would still have their innocence."

"That sounds like paradise." The other one of the man's sisters grinned wistfully.

The girl's best friend's other brother smiled at her, "No, it sounds better than paradise, much, much better."

"I wonder what's going to happen to us." The girl interrupted.

Everyone stared at her; she had broken the unspoken taboo on the subject. "What do you mean, Amy?" asked one of her best friend's brothers.

"Ted, you all know perfectly well what I mean. What—" she said over-pronouncing the words, "—do you guys think Ian's going to do with us?"

The silence wasn't awkward anymore, it was deafening. They all looked around helplessly at each other, the possibilities roaring in their ears.

Finally the girl's brother told her, "We don't know Amy, we just don't know."

...

A man stood in a simple, yet elegant office. His sister was standing behind him as he stared unseeingly out the window into the distance. "They're almost here."

The man sighed and turned around to face her, "I know that, Natalie, I've been awaiting this day for over a year now."

"There's a 'but' in that sentence and you know it."

"I've been waiting for this ever since this whole mess began." She just looked at him, waiting for him to continue. "But, I don't know whether to be happy or to be nervous. It's been such a long time; they've probably all changed as much as – if not more –than we have." He turned back around to the window, except now his eyes were searching; searching for something that they couldn't see, and wouldn't be able to from this side of the Palace.

"I wonder if they'll accept our apology," his sister finally spoke, "I wonder if they know that it's all we can offer them now that the planets not worth anything anymore."

"I wonder what they'll think of us."

"I wonder what they'll be like."

"I wonder how much their personalities have changed."

"At least we know what they look like." The woman picked up a manila folder from a desk and pulled out some pictures from it.

The man took the picture on the top of the stack and stared at it. "There _is _a reason I have spies, however there are other reasons I have them."

"Yes, and exactly how many do you have over there now?" the woman asked, flipping through the pictures.

"Even though you're my sister—"

The woman looked up at him, "I know, I know, there could be bugs." She plucked the picture; the man was looking at out of his hands. "Have the Cahills even caught any after…"

"No." His tone could've frozen even the most courageous of men.

She just smiled at bit at the picture, "I wonder how much that changed her, she must have been so heartbroken; she'd be so suspicious now, don't you think so?"

"I do not care how much the spy hurt her; all that matters is that he was getting us important Intel on the other Cahills." The man had lost all the comfort he had received from the playful banter.

The woman looked at the man's face. "Yes, but you still like her don't you?"

"Of course not."

"Oh, this is going to be so much fun." The woman took out an empty sheet of paper and began writing on it.

The man stole it from her, "Natalie, this is two people's lives you're thinking about messing with; one of them is my own. If you are plotting against me, you should not do so in my presence." He scolded her.

_Click-clack, click-clack, click-clack, click-clack._

The sound of shoes on the tile hallway reached their ears – someone was approaching the office, both of the siblings shifted into subtle defense positions.

The person thumped on the door, "Come in," the man called.

One of the Palace servants poked their head inside the room, and the siblings relaxed. "Yes?" the woman asked.

"The _Cahills _are here." The servant's tone wasn't very flattering towards the name _Cahill_. The sibling's mother had trained the entire world's population to hate everyone and anyone who was one.

The siblings looked at each other, and for a moment, their faces looked like they were supposed to look like, young adults that were anxious about something.

...

The guards were much nicer to them than they could've been the girl supposed; at least they had showed manners, which was much more than she had expected, imperial citizens were instructed to utterly despise the name Cahill, and that didn't exactly leave much hope for anyone with the last name of Cahill.

The first room they were led to was extravagant; it was filled with a bunch of uncomfortable-looking leather sofas and ornately decorated and jewel-studded coffee tables. It kind of intimated the girl; she hadn't expected such a display of wealth in a room that screamed:_"I'm so much better than you can ever hope to be."_The walls were painted a dark ruby color, the color of the Lucians, and the ceiling was either painted the same color and way, way, way, up there; or a much darker red and only way, way up there. There was two doorways that were easily visible, the one that they had come through and the one that the girl assumed that they were leaving through, permanently.

The nine condemned Cahills quietly and quickly realized that they weren't going to see another room again and silently began to say their final goodbyes. But, to the girl's (and everyone else's really) surprise, another guard, a higher-ranking one, compared to how swiftly the guards that had led them there scrambled to follow his orders; came into the room and said that he had orders to take them to another room to wait. So they were led through a few labyrinthine corridors for another long twenty minutes.

When they finally reached the room where they would spend their last minutes – the girl's feet were killing her. She knew that if she was going to die that she should be thinking happy thoughts, but seriously, her feet _hurt_. But she was attentive enough to notice that the new room was very different than the previous one, this room had a much… homelier feel to it. It was full of plush, overstuffed couches, loveseats, and armchairs. There were even practical coffee tables and even a coat rack; there were reading lamps and decorative lamps scattering the room. _The best part? _The fact that nothing matched. "I could die happy here," the girl said, twirling around, searching for the comfiest-looking seat.

She received concerned looks from her friends. "_'I could die happy here?_'" asked her best friend carefully, as the girl walked over to an overfilled-with-cotton loveseat.

"It does look a lot like Grace's mansion." The girl's brother agreed, but noticing the odd look his girlfriend was giving him, he added; "but that doesn't mean that I want to die here." The girl's brother sat down on a loveseat facing the one the girl was on and pulled his girlfriend down next to him.

"Amy," a boy asked, "you still haven't answered Sinead's question." The boy sat on an armchair near the group.

The girl sighed. "I'm not saying that I'm about to commit suicide. I'm just saying that Ian has good taste for an evil, power-hungry maniac. Now the rest of you, sit down already."

The girl's best friend pulled her boyfriend over to the sofa next to girl's perch. One of the girl's best friend's brothers followed them and the other dragged over another couch with the help of the girl's brother's girlfriend's sister. Together, they formed a lopsided circular shape over to the right of the room. Apparently, Ian had better things to do than kill his former rivals (oh, what a blow to the ego, the girl had thought when half an hour passed and Ian had yet to show up), so the Cahills ended up entertaining each other; they had a heated debate if penguins ate gummy worms (the girl's brother won, with the argument that penguins ate both gummy worms _and _gummy bears), they speculated whether or not pineapples could grow in a desert oasis, and learned that iguanas can burp _and _fart. The girl really didn't need to know the last one, but her brother _was _a rather odd source of information.

Cutting off the girl's brother's question of "What's a panda's favorite fruit?" The door opened and the Kabra siblings stepped inside.

Silence, complete and utter silence.

The girl took a deep breath. _May as well get this over with_, she thought. "What do you want from us?"

"What do you mean by that?"

The girl just stared at the siblings, "You know perfectly well what I meant by that."

The woman smiled at the girl, "Don't mind him, he's stalling. We're not going to kill you, nor do we plan on hurting you… at the moment anyway."

The girl's friends just stared at the siblings – it was pretty obvious they weren't expecting good news. Finally one of the girl's best friend's brothers spoke up, "…What?"

The woman smiled again, a rather creepy, I'm-watching-you-from-behind-the-bushes smile, "I am _so _resisting the urge to start cackling maniacally right now."

"Don't mind Natalie," the man began, "she's been anticipating you're arrival for a while now," – here Natalie pouted –"what she meant to say was that we're not going to torture/maim/kill any of you."

The girl allowed herself a smile, and opened her mouth, but her brother cut her off. "You mean… you're not going to hurt us?"

"Exactly that. You will be given a wing of the Palace to share, and you'll live out your lives here, you won't be talking to anyone else about what happened." The man answered the girl's brother.

Before any others could protest, the girl spoke up, "Deal."

Her friends stared at her once again, but this time they could see where she was coming from.

The man cleared his throat. "Thank you, Amy, and now if you will just follow us, we'll lead you to your new home."

...

It took seconds for the other Cahills to numbly follow the Kabras out the door.

It took minutes to reach their wing of the Palace.

It took hours for it to sink into their brains that they weren't going to be killed.

It took days for the Cahills to stop getting lost in their wing of the Palace.

It took weeks to get used to the idea of living in the Palace. During this time most of the Cahills patched up their relationships with the Kabras.

It took months for Hamilton Holt and Sinead Starling to finally get married in a double wedding with Dan Cahill and Reagan Holt. During the reception, Ted Starling asked Natalie Kabra to be his girlfriend– they were married a year later. And at their reception Ned Starling proposed to Madison Holt.

It took years for Ian Kabra and Amy Cahill to finally admit their feelings for each other – they were married within the month.

It took half a century for Jonah Wizard to finally be reunited with his dead fiancée.

It took the rest of the century for their name to become legends that no one was going to forget.

...

"…_And there are some days when I wonder what life would be like if the Hunt ended differently, would we have made our own utopia? But I look at my life, and I remember that this might not be Happily Ever After, but I did so much for the world, and I ended up with the man I love. I know that I might have unknowingly given up the dream life a long time ago, but the good in my life outshines the bad. So I guess that this might not be paradise, but it's a good life I've lead."_

-Amy Cahill, second Empress of the Kabra Empire

**...**

**I know it's hardly the best, but I like the idea.**

**In case you didn't figure it out, the girl was Amy, the girl's brother is Dan, Dan's girlfriend is Reagan, Amy's best friend is Sinead, Sinead's fiancée is Hamilton, Hamilton's sister is Madison, the boy is Jonah and Sinead's brothers are in order of dialogue is Ned, Ted, Ted.**

**Thanks to Kaye who beta'd this!**


End file.
